August 2011 Archives

Godly Seed is the history of the birth control movement in America from 1873, when the prohibitive federal Comstock Law took effect, to 1973, when the passage of Roe v. Wade made abortion a legal option.

After a short section on reproductive issues in ancient times and a primer on the views of the Protestant Reformers on fertility and marriage, the author delves into the legacy of the formidable Anthony Comstock. Comstock, of Puritan descent, devoted his life to the suppression of sexual information.

Equating contraception with abortion and pornography and working with organizations like the YMCA, Comstock lobbied politicians until laws were passed in each state forbidding the possession of contraceptive devices, obscene material, and abortifacients.

The federal Comstock Law resulted in the arrests of hundreds of business owners and individuals who bought or sold such materials.

So much fear was generated due to the Comstock Law that publishing houses no longer produced medical textbooks containing information on reproduction.

Nurse Margaret Sanger had a patient who died due to a botched abortion. When Sanger tried to conduct research into the human reproductive system to try to understand what had gone wrong with the pregnancy termination, she was appalled to discover that due to the Comstock Law she could find no information on the subject.

Sanger then decided to make it her life’s mission to undo the work of Anthony Comstock and to make reproductive information not only available, but to make contraception seem respectable by renaming it first “birth control” then “family planning.”

Sanger went on to help found the Planned Parenthood Association of America, which stressed the notion that the ideal family was one in which each child was scheduled for birth according to the needs and desires of the parents, rather than a family whose children were born by chance.

Christians had traditionally adhered to the idea that God would decide how many children should be born to each family, and they eschewed contraception. However, with the passage of time and the new fear of world overpopulation, some began to rethink this notion.

One of the public figures who helped Evangelicals in particular to accept birth control and thus help to cut down on the population explosion was preacher Billy Graham. In his worldwide revival crusades Graham had seen firsthand what overpopulation could do to a country.

Concerned and wanting to do something to help, Graham commissioned Christian theologians and founded Christianity Today magazine, which had the early mission of convincing Protestant Christians that contraception was not only acceptable to God, but that it could possibly be a sin not to engage in birth control.

Christianity Today sponsored reproduction symposiums and even editorialized that abortion was a valid choice for the Christian believer.

Catholicism had never found birth control or abortion acceptable options, but all the Evangelical discussion on the subject of reproductive choice sparked debate within the American Catholic community.

Many Catholics hoped that the Pope would agree with the new views of Evangelicals with his Humane Vitae encyclical, but this was not to be - the Pope sided with tradition.

One group of Protestant Christians applauded the Pope’s stance - the Fundamentalists. Convinced that Evangelicals had become too liberal and had gone too far with their acceptance of abortion, a group of Fundamentalists decided to return to strict Biblical teaching on fertility.

These believers founded the Quiverfull movement, which holds that families with large numbers of children are especially blessed by God.

The Quiverfull adherents do not use contraception and they trust that overpopulation will be remedied by God, in that He will always provide for believers.

Godly Seed is well-written and objective - one is never sure to which side of the contraception debate the author adheres, with the exception that the reader is sure to realize that Gnostics are not a particularly favorite group of Mr. Carlson.

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My first paid indexing job was a book on hospice care and counseling, written by a chaplain. I was offered this assignment due to my indexing specialty being with spiritual and religious texts. Naturally I was overjoyed to work on my first paid gig.

But the subject had me spooked.

I had had my first experience with hospice just a few months earlier, when my mother-in-law passed away. I really didn't understand the process at that time, though.

Through indexing this text I was able to get over some of my fear of the dying process and the issues that inevitably arise from it.

Little did I know that I would soon put to use what I had just learned when a family friend, Annie, was diagnosed with a rare stage four cancer and entered into hospice care soon afterward. My sister was distraught, as Annie was not only her neighbor, but her young son was best friends with my niece.

I was so grateful that I had the hospice book on my shelf (the chaplain had sent me a signed copy) and was able to loan it to my sister so that she could find some comfort and understanding in Annie's last days.

My elderly father is ill with post-polio syndrome now and not yet in hospice care. But if hospice becomes his path, I will once again bring out this wonderful text and leaf through the index, looking for comfort and guidance.